Jonathan Moyo hypocrisy on WikiLeaks exposed

This is what Zanu PF strategist Jonathan Moyo wrote when the WikiLeaks first exploded late last year. Moyo was then unaware that he has numerous cables of his own in which he discussed with US diplomats strategies to fight President Robert Mugabe.

At the time, Moyo called on government to have Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai arrested and charged with treason for speaking to US officials. Moyo wrote an opinion piece lambasting the US and Tsvangirai.

By Jonathan Moyo

Thanks to the sensational and rather curious Wikileaks revelations published last week, the treacherous cat is finally out of its sell-out bag. This time the narrative about the MDC-T’s treachery is official, courtesy of a tell-all diplomatic cable sent to the US government by Christopher Dell after he completed his tumultuous tenure as US Ambassador to Zimbabwe in July 2007.

Notwithstanding the hollow denials over the years since its formation by the Westminster Foundation in 1999 on behalf of racist elements in the British political establishment and their Rhodie cousins, the MDC-T is indeed a puppet party actively organised and run by operatives of the US government who have been holding its dirty hand on behalf of the colonially hamstrung British government for the purpose of effecting illegal regime change in Zimbabwe.

But first there is a clear and present need for some critical observations about the Wikileaks cables before examining further Dell’s official confirmation that the MDC-T is a sell-out party including unravelling what the US government really thinks about Morgan Tsvangirai’s otherwise widely known leadership incapacity which renders him totally unfit for executive office in government.

Last week Wikileaks, which is run by Julian Assange — a controversial and rather self-indulgent former journalist who seems to have suspicious links with some spooky global intelligence forces — released the first trickle of startling diplomatic cables taken from the first batch of an estimated 250 000 out of some 700 000 that are expected to be eventually made public if all things remain equal.

Out of the promised first batch of 250 000 Wikileaks, whose website has been a target of ferocious cyber-attacks from US government sources assisted by an array of free-lancers, had by yesterday released a paltry 683 cables, one of which is the Dell wire copy on Zimbabwe.

The US diplomatic cables being released by Wikileaks cover 274 countries over a period of 44 years from 1966 to February 2010 and are in three categories, namely, “secret”, “classified” and “unclassified”.

With a total of 2 998 cables Zimbabwe is in the top 10 of countries with the highest number of leaked US diplomatic cables in the possession of Wikileaks. Out of these cables on Zimbabwe 39 are under the category of “secret”, 1 542 are categorised as “classified” while 1 417 are in the “unclassified” category.

With the Dell cable, which is taken from the “classified” category being the only one released so far, it means we have to brace ourselves up for some 2 997 US diplomatic cables on Zimbabwe which Wikileaks is yet to release.

What is staggering about the number of the cables on Zimbabwe is the fact that they outnumber those from Afghanistan and Pakistan which are at the core of the US so-called war on terror. This alone demonstrates the single-minded and obviously misplaced and thus doomed US focus on illegal regime change in Zimbabwe.

It should be noted that, despite the claim that Wikileaks is releasing these cables in the name of freedom of information, there is something curious and, in fact, stinky about the selective and nontransparent way in which the cables are being released in dribs and drabs.

For as yet unclear reasons WikiLeaks decided to first give all the cables it has to four European newspapers: the Guardian in Britain, Le Monde in France, El Pais in Spain and Der Spiegel in Germany.

In turn, the Guardian turned over the cables to the New York Times which had not been favoured by Wikileaks perhaps because of the paper’s publication of unsavoury stuff about Julian Assange who stands accused of two counts of rape in Sweden and whose arrest on that charge, which he vehemently denies, is imminent.

But what has raised eyebrows is the fact that the New York Times seems to be deciding what, how and when cables are released by Wikileaks and this accounts for the 683 cables that had been released by yesterday.

Claiming to have the most and best experience in handling leaked sensitive information, the New York Times has taken the lead in advising Wikileaks, which has names of individuals, places, dates or events, to delete from the cables “in order to protect lives”. One does not have to be a rocket scientist to presume an operational link between the New York Times and US intelligence authorities.

In any event, and this is very important to keep in mind, it is common cause that the mainstream media in the US and Europe are embedded to the ruling class and thus the political establishments in their home countries.

Against this backdrop, and going by how the leaked US diplomatic cables are being released in a controlled if not manipulated way, the fact that Wikileaks has become embedded to the New York Times, the Guardian, Le Monde, El Pais and Der Spiegel newspapers, which are part of the European and American officialdom, means Wikileaks is itself a mainstream voice in Europe and America despite its pretence to the contrary.

And the involvement of the five Western newspapers mentioned above, and especially the active and leading role played by the New York Times in deciding the number and type of cables to be released by Wikileaks suggests that there is more to what is going on than meets the eye or ear.

Something big is going on and only time will tell what it is. Meanwhile, the significance of Dell’s “classified” July 2007 cable on Tsvangirai and the MDC-T cannot be ignored. Yes, Dell’s cable also makes disparaging comments about Mugabe, but those comments are not new nor are they worse than what Dell used to say about Mugabe in public.

There is no sane person who would want to read a classified US diplomatic cable to know the opinion of the political establishment in the US on Mugabe.

What is significant about Dell’s cable with respect to Mugabe is that it contains an acknowledgment of Mugabe’s brilliance, tactical skills and capacity as a national leader, something which the rest of the world, especially here in Zimbabwe and in Africa, has always known and admired but which the US had not previously acknowledged in public.

This means that what Americans say in public is not supported by what they believe in private. In public they demonise Mugabe but in private they admire his brilliance and tactical skills as is captured in Dell’s “classified” July 2007 cable.

The lesson from this is that the US government lies in public such that its grandstanding on matters of human rights, democracy, media freedom and good governance are just public garbage that should be thrown away as we do any other garbage.

Take a look at what the US government says in public about Tsvangirai and his MDC-T versus what it says about them in private as exemplified by Dell’s cable. Just try and recount the numerous awards that the US and its cronies around the world have showered on Tsvangirai, falsely parading him as a thinking, capable and effective democratic leader when they very well know that none of this is true.

And they have even contemplated building Tsvangirai up, as they did Poland’s Lech Walesa, by organising a Nobel Peace Prize when they know only too well that he has been the architect of very serious violence in his own party. Yet the record will show that the most important unspoken election campaign platform of the MDC-T has been that it is supported by the world’s only superpower — the US — along with its allies in Europe.

But Dell’s “classified” July 2007 cable is very useful insofar as it exposes that lie which is as naked as Ambassador Jacqueline Zwambila. In this connection, Dell’s cable is helpful in three ways.

In the first place, the cable confirms that the one thing that is profoundly wrong with the MDC-T is that it is doomed by its treachery as an ideologically bankrupt political party that has no redeeming vision for Zimbabwe outside the pursuit of treacherous machinations of the US government that seeks illegal regime change in our country. Dell’s cable makes it very clear that it has been up to the US government “. . . to take the lead, to say and do hard things (what could that be?) and set the agenda.”

This is a clear confirmation that the agenda of the MDC-T is set by the US government. Dell’s cable is even more poignant in its description of the governance capacity of the MDC-T about which he says: “Zimbabwe’s opposition is far from ideal and I leave convinced that had we (the US) had different partners, we could have achieved more already.

“But you have to play the hand you are dealt. With that in mind, the current leadership has little executive experience and will require massive hand holding and assistance should they ever come to power.” Given that Dell wrote his cable in July 2007 what more could the US have achieved by then outside elections which were not due until March 2008?

Is this not clear evidence for the wish for dirty tricks? The admission by the US government that the MDC-T would require “massive hand holding (by the US) should they ever come to power” proves the puppetry of the MDC-T beyond debate. The Zimbabwean electorate better take note of that crushing fact.

In the second place, in addition to confirming that the MDC-T is indeed a puppet party as we in Zanu-PF have consistently said since its formation in 1999, and as already indicated above, Dell’s July 2007 cable proves — again beyond any shadow of doubt — that the US government “leads, says and does the hard things (such as the imposition of illegal economic sanctions)” including “setting the agenda” for the MDC-T.

More ominously we now know from Dell’s cable that the US government stands ready to “massively hold the hand (of the MDC-T) should it ever come to power”.

Zanu PF has repeatedly submitted, especially to Sadc mediators, that there is massive US interference in our national affairs. Finally the US government has confirmed through Dell’s cable that it does indeed interfere and it remains to be seen what Sadc, the African Union and others will do now that they have the evidence they have always wanted.

The fact that the Dell disclosures have come on the heels of revelations that the British government planted one Charles Beatle to work for regime change in the Prime Minister’s Office without a work permit just goes to demonstrate not only the depth of the MDC-T’s treachery but also the determination of the Anglo-Saxons to destabilise our country.

In the third place and in addition to confirming that the MDC-T is a puppet party and that the US does in fact grossly interfere with our national affairs despite the usual public denials, the Dell cable also puts paid to the claims that Tsvangirai is a capable national leader deserving of high office.

Thanks to Dell, we now know that despite its public lies to the contrary the US government knows what Zimbabweans have known that Tsvangirai is “a flawed figure, not readily open to advice, indecisive and with questionable judgment in selecting those around him” such that Zimbabwe “should not rely on his executive abilities to lead the country to recovery”.

This is not surprising at all. While Tsvangirai’s US, British and Rhodie handlers have tried to project him as an international statesman with big ideas, the fact is that no single small idea has ever come from his mind through his mouth.

He is unable to speak his mind conceptually, fluently and convincingly without a script. The nonsense he says about human rights, democracy and good governance is always written for him by US and British intelligence operatives embedded in his office such as the likes of Charles Beatle.

But when all is said and done the US government should rest assured that, under Zanu PF, Zimbabweans — especially those who have in the past supported Tsvangirai under the mistaken belief that he is the choice of the US government — will remember this unsolicited advice at the next polls by ensuring that they do not elect a sell-out with no executive abilities who leads a puppet party that needs massive hand holding by foreigners who are hostile to our country’s quest for total control of our resources through indigenisation and economic empowerment.

Little did Zimbabweans know Jonathan Moyo was holding his own meetings with US diplomats. In the latest Wikileaks revelations he is exposed as having requested most of the meetings with the same people he was attacking Tsvangirai for meeting. Click to see article